


A Helping Hand Is Coming

by HarpiaHarpyja



Series: A Song of Trash and Fire [13]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Alternate take, Ben Solo's Coconut Hair Conditoner, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hair Washing, Ogling Your Roommate in a Totally Not Sexual Way, Rey Is Totally Not Thinking About Ben's Dick, Rey POV, Showers, The Shower Musical Stylings of Ben Solo, There Is Not Enough Water in the Toilet Tank to Slake Rey's Thirst, reylo freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-17
Updated: 2018-09-17
Packaged: 2019-07-13 08:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarpiaHarpyja/pseuds/HarpiaHarpyja
Summary: As Rey and Ben get ready for their ten-year reunion, their overdue bills get the better of them—the water is shut off. It's less a problem for Rey than it is for Ben, who is in the middle of a shower. But Rey is nothing if not a good friend, and she knows just what to do when he finds himself with his hair full of conditioner and no way to wash it out.(A companion ficlet for 'A Song of Trash and Fire: Ben and Rey Make a Porno', taking place the night the story begins, Thanksgiving Eve 2018.)





	A Helping Hand Is Coming

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, we are still doing ficlets. I decided to do something a little different this time—an alternate take from Chapter One: Umbrella is Coming—or, a look into just how thirsty Rey is even at the very beginning. After this, it's really not remotely shocking she was so quick to agree to do a porno with him.

“Oh, shit.” 

Rey teared up at the sting from the makeup wand she’d just jabbed herself in the eyeball with, then tried to blink the mascara out of her eye. Blinking was more difficult than it should have been when she was fighting a scowl. She’d been putting the finishing touches on her face for the evening—she had goals for this reunion, and she had to look at least passably put-together to achieve them—when the racket in the bathroom reached critical mass. Ben had been in the shower for nearly twenty minutes and, true to form, insisted on blasting his accompanying musical selection at top volume. 

Tonight, Rey noticed, he’d clearly been working with a theme: Hits of 2008. Lucky her. 

Actually, the music wasn’t bad. She liked pop, and he clearly did too, despite what he would say when asked. She’d heard his other playlists on many nights (and sometimes mornings) just like this for years: Gaga. Perry. Clarkson. Swift. Bey. 1D. Sure, he always rounded it all out with classic stuff, obscure stuff, all that old punk and grunge he’d probably used to listen to in high school. But there _was_ a theme, and it was not lost on her that Rihanna, of all people, seemed to figure most prominently.

So she shouldn’t have been surprised at all that right now he was about a third of the way through “Umbrella” and, as far as Rey was concerned, officially way too into it. After years of living with him, she could tolerate most of Ben’s quirks. And at the very least, he wasn’t a terrible singer, even when he was clearly hamming it up for the express purpose of annoying her.

Still, she had a breaking point, and tonight she was excited and nervous and just needed some peace and quiet for a few minutes before they left for the reunion, so someone had to do something about his bizarre brand of exhibitionism. It all fell to her: she was the only sane person in the apartment right now. She would just slip into the bathroom (the lock was broken, though she kind of thought they were beyond bathroom locks by now), grab his phone, turn it down, and bail. 

Maybe yell at him a little. It wasn’t like he was going to burst out of the shower and come running after her in a naked, soapy rage. They had a high level of comfort with each other, but she was pretty sure they weren’t quite at _that_ point.

As she drew closer to the bathroom, stumbling out of the single high heel she’d had on, she saw the steam drifting out from under the door and winced at the sheer volume of the music. The _sounds_. Oh stars, he’d reached the bridge. 

On second thought, she’d give him the chance to fix this himself; she wasn’t sure she could handle being in the same room as him right now. It was often easy to forget—Ben Solo was a loud motherfucker, and Rey valued her eardrums. She only had the two.

She stopped outside the door, banged a fist on it a few times, allowed a dramatic paused, then bellowed, “Ben!”

He barely missed a beat before she heard him yelling, “Sorry, I’m no longer offering fashion advice! Try me again next week!”

What. A. Prick. Lovable prick, sure, but a prick.

Rey sighed. “Can you lower that?” She gave another bang at the door for emphasis, and it responded with a satisfying, ominous rattle. “I swear to God, you better not be jerking off in there!”

“I’m considering it!”

 _Ew._ Then again, she’d opened herself up to that, hadn’t she? And who knew what kind of things he considered appropriate preparation for a ten-year reunion, or what the real motivations behind his Rihanna obsession might be? 

“Well . . .” Rey cast about, threw her hands up, resisted the urge to kick the door. “. . . don’t! We need to go soon! Stop that noise and finish up!”

For a few moments, she thought he was actually heeding her request. It happened every so often, but not usually over stupid stuff like this. When Ben did nice things, they were, shockingly, the sorts of nice things that mattered. She was just turning to head back to her room, certain she was about to hear the volume of the music reduced dramatically. Instead, there was a weird, muffled gurgly sound from the bathroom, like a toilet backing up. That was mildly alarming. The water had stopped running, too, which just surprised her.

She pushed at the door; yep, unlocked, and barely closed. So Rey opened it just enough to poke her head in, cautiously checking that he was still in the shower and she wasn’t about to get an eyeful of Ben in all his . . . Ben-ness. The air was heavy, thick with steam and a variety of manly hygiene smells that her brain had long ago filed as “SHOWER BEN”—some kind of woodsy-and-or-spicy shower gel, a trace of generic shaving cream, and something sweeter and almost fruity. (It was a stark contrast to “WORK BEN”—a potent olfactory cocktail of steamed milk, industrial dish soap, coffee grounds, and, always, a bitter base note of abject misery.)

“Wow, I didn’t mean you had to stop immediately,” she said, still straining to make sure she would be heard over the music.

She heard something shaking violently behind the shower curtain, and then Ben barking, “Fuck!” The rattling sound intensified, followed by a thump and a rusty squeak. “Did we—? The goddamn water’s turned off! They turned it off!”

Rey’s mouth dropped open a little, and she stepped into the bathroom to stop beside the sink. “Ohh.” His phone was propped up on the basin, so she picked it up, keyed in his password, and began to lower the music. _Good Girl Gone Bad_ , indeed. “Shit.”

“‘Oh shit’ is right,” he mumbled. The curtain slid aside a little, and Ben’s face peeked out. “Hey, help me out here?”

“What?” Rey tore her attention from his phone—current wallpaper: the Iron Throne—and looked at him. He looked miserable and annoyed, which she supposed wasn’t too far from the default, as she processed what he’d said. _Help him . . . out? OH._ Her eyes fell to the lower half of the shower curtain, and whatever lay beyond. “No! Do it yourself!”

They’d been friends a long time, and she loved him dearly, but she was not going to help him finish what he’d started, so to speak. God, she’d only been joking when she asked if he was jerking off!

“Do what mysel—oh. No, I’m not—what the hell, Rey? Why would I—?” Ben just looked appalled and reddened somewhat as he shook his head violently. “I meant my hair. I’ve got . . . conditioner up there. It needs to be rinsed out.”

 _Oh. Right. Yeah, there was that._ His hair was soaked and plastered down around his face, and she was reminded how much his ears stuck out. He’d been wearing his hair longer for the last few years. She’d forgotten that they were actually kind of endearing, even if she knew he purposely covered them. But everyone had their insecurities, she supposed—hers were her knobby knees. 

“Oh.” She grinned and cast about for some solution to his problem. “Well, I don’t know what you expect me to use to—ah hah.” A porcelain revelation appeared before her eyes. With a dramatic flourish, she spread her arms before her. “Toilet!”

Ben’s face didn’t just fall; it plummeted. “On second thought, maybe I’ll wear a hat.”

Rey rolled her eyes, inched her fingers beneath the edges of the toilet tank lid, and lifted it away. “No, not from the bowl. Try having a little common sense some time,” she scolded, placing it on the floor and grabbing the bath towel he’d left on the sink. “Here, put this on and come lean over the sink. You’re too tall for me to reach if you’re just standing there.”

Let no one ever say she was not a good friend. 

“Right.” 

He looked more surly than ever, but he obeyed. He accepted the towel, disappeared behind the shower curtain for a few seconds, then pulled it aside when he was as decent as he was going to get in the circumstances and stepped out. Rey was not going to ogle him, but she did take a look. She’d seen him shirtless plenty of times, so that wasn’t really anything new, _but_ . . . but, he had been looking good lately. He _did_ look good. 

Over the last year he’d been exercising almost obsessively—she assumed because he hated his job and was trying to find some useful outlet for the stress that didn’t involve eating, which was usually her go-to—and she had to admit, it had been doing things for him. Specifically, for his shoulders. And his chest. And his midsection. And, as a friend, it was well within her rights to notice. Congratulations to him, really. Good show on the abs front, and so on.

But maybe slightly creepy to comment on right now. Yeah, definitely creepy.

She stepped back, giggling to herself as she let him bend forward over the sink to situate himself. Hopefully he’d just think she was laughing at his expense, not chiding herself for sort of perving on her poor, woebegone roommate in his naked time of need. When he looked ready, Rey filled the cup they kept in the bathroom with water from the toilet tank, poured it over his head, then refilled it and poured a second cup, and a third. 

By then Ben’s hair looked sufficiently saturated, so she put the cup down for a moment and pulled her hands though it one at a time to wring the first round of water and conditioner out. He was surprisingly un-chatty, though she couldn’t really blame him. It was probably at least a little embarrassing for him, despite the fact that this was the same guy who routinely pranced around the wooded areas of the greater Philadelphia region dressed in armor and waving a foam sword around. His threshold for embarrassment was something indeed.

He _did_ have nice hair, though. She’d always thought it and told him so on more than one occasion, and he seemed to know it. Still, she was pretty sure she hadn’t ever touched it in anything more than passing. Even wet, it was soft and silky, nice and thick. Lucky bastard. The conditioner smelled really bloody good, too, and she had to resist the urge to lean down for a better whiff. 

_Also creepy, Rey. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been friends. Get a grip._

She snickered again. If nothing else, this experience was confirming one thing—she really did need to get laid tonight. Two years was _too long_ and now she was taking it out on Ben. Though she was pretty sure he was in similar straits. As far as she knew, he hadn’t been on a date in almost a year, which meant he probably hadn’t slept with anyone in at least just as long. He wasn’t really a one-night stand type of guy. She couldn’t say any of that for certain, mind; they’d used to be pretty open about their sex lives, quick to joke about it and tease each other, almost weirdly knowledgeable of each other’s habits and preferences, but some time in the last few years they’d just stopped talking about it. It was strange, but maybe they’d aged out of it.

Oh well. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And it was simply not possible that he’d never checked her out before or thought about her in a less-than-wholesome way. Hell, _she’d_ thought of him before. Innocent curiosity and speculation. It didn’t mean anything; it was just the human thing when— 

“It’s not funny,” Ben muttered, his voice echoing a little off the smooth sides of the sink. 

“It is a little. Though I guess it won’t be later when I can’t shower. Or wash my face, or . . .” Rey grimaced and snarled to herself. It very moderately eased her annoyance. But when their own irresponsibility—and some rotten luck overall—was the cause, she really had no one to blame but herself. And Ben, too. They were in this together, and they had both fucked up. She forced herself to stop drawing her fingers through his hair to pour another two cupfuls of water over his head. She watched it run off his neck and hair in rivulets. “This really sucks. I thought we had a few more days ‘til we had to pay it.” 

Her gaze dropped to the back of his shoulders. He had cute little freckles there. She’d never noticed those. He had freckles and birthmarks all over him, didn’t he? _All_ over? Rey’s eyes drifted lower, followed the slope of his back, down to where the towel was tightly secured around his waist. What would happen if that towel just . . . fell off?

_Nothing, Rey! Nothing would happen!_

She would pick it back up off the floor and hand it to him and maybe make a dick joke, but not actually see his dick, because she wasn’t going to look at his dick, because his dick was none of her business. And now she was thinking about Ben’s dick. Great.

_So what?_

She realized her eyes had not left the rather pleasant curve of his towel-covered backside for about ten full seconds, shook her head, and returned her attention to the matter at hand. That was to say, her hand, in his hair, getting the conditioner out. 

With a good deal more concentration than it warranted, Rey pressed her open palm to the base of his skull and drew it firmly forward toward the front of his head, applying more pressure than she had the first time, fingertips digging against his scalp a little, squeezing the ends of his hair where it hung near his face. There was something very satisfying about seeing those droplets of water running clear.

“Yeah, me too.” He seemed to tense, like he was trying to get into a more comfortable position. Maybe she’d pulled his hair harder than she meant to. She eased up and was more gentle as she continued to run her hand through his hair a few more times to rid it of any stubborn, lingering traces of conditioner. Ben tilted his face toward her. “Almost done?”

“Almost done.” 

She smiled, even though he couldn’t see it, then poured a final cup of water over him and gave one last frisk of her hand over his head, the way she might pet a particularly boisterous dog. That was a mistake—she was hit with a faceful of that conditioner smell again, and she just had to ask. 

“What is this? Coconut or something? No wonder you have prettier hair than I do.” Ah, yes, back to normal. Some light, complimentary teasing. Excellent. And it was _definitely_ coconut. “Done, by the way.”

“Hah.” It wasn’t that he laughed; he actually said _Hah_ , then straightened up. His neck gave a little cracking sound as he turned his head a few times and looked at himself in the mirror. He seemed satisfied, and a moment later he was very obviously pushing his hair back down over his ears; it was still sticking in clumps and didn't really hide anything. In fact, it may have been the shitty bathroom lighting, but his ears looked slightly pink. “Nice job. Thanks.”

“Sure.” Rey was about to give him a bracing pat on the back, a sort of sportsmanlike gesture, she supposed, but thought better of it. He was a little too nude. “I’ll go get the car warmed up.” 

She relinquished her hold on his phone, which she’d been keeping stowed in her back pocket as she saw to his hair, and left it at the side of the sink for him to dive back into whatever ear-splitting music he wished as he finished getting ready—she’d tried to leave him a hint by switching it to Queen. “Cross your fingers the power’s still on when we get back.”

Something told her she shouldn’t joke about things like that. But she didn’t let herself dwell on what-ifs. They had a reunion to get through.


End file.
